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But this is our last ever semester at Lochkelvin, and with the end of January comes our final ever mock exams. It’s drummed into us at each lesson: heads down, shut up, get straight As — the glorious culmination of our sterling education at Lochkelvin. And this time, our mocks aren’t just graded internal assessments. Whatever we achieve in them will be forwarded onto the exam board as evidence of our academic rigor, or lack thereof, in the instance that we cannot sit the formal exams in May. To me, this is highly likely. With all the disruption from the outside world, I’m starting to think it’ll be a miracle if we even reach the January exams unscathed. And so Lochkelvin has a hold on us — because, yes, we want good grades, it’s why we’re all here in the first place, and this is the carrot on the stick that Lochkelvin beats us with.
I decide I’ll keep my nose buried in books at least for this month, that way I can’t piss people off —
And yet,and yet…
It’s Hodgson’s class where the fun really begins. Last year, he’d been agitating, developing pro-Antiro sentiment. He’d been called out for this at the emergency round table meeting the chiefs had held following our disastrous visit to St. Camford. But over Christmas break, it’s clear he appears to have…radicalized.
With his tweed suit buttoned up to his chin and his eccentric blast of white hair, the old man stands amid a recently renovated classroom. Where sketches of 3D shapes had been pinned, a full-scale Antiro flag hangs instead. Graphs have been covered by an inked list headed ‘The Core Values of Antiro – a Group For ALL.’ And a useful diagram of the parts of a circle has been replaced by a disturbingly large photo of Benji in a glittering crown, flower garlands decorating the frame.
It’s Rory’s disbelieving “JesusChrist” that I hear first, but from the bewildered expressions on the faces of the rest of the class, I feel like it could have come from almost anyone.
Despite the madness of this revelation, at least it’s heartening to see bewilderment and not approval on most faces. It means Lochkelvin’s holding out. Maybe the ritual that Rory so desperately believes in is still ticking away, providing its gentle magical barrier from outside forces that seek to harm us.
“Before you sit down,” Professor Hodsgon’s scratchy little voice bleats out, “I want you all to remain standing for our new national anthem.” And before any of us can protest, Hodgson presses play on an old-fashioned radio with a cassette deck. The noisy strings signaling the Antiro anthem begin to blare. I meet Rory’s silver eyes, incredulous, and am relieved by the calculating expression on his face. He stares at his watch the whole time the (long) song is played.
Chairs scrape as we sit. As Hodgson reminds us of the main tenets of integral calculus, he draws on the chalkboard an axis and then a symbol that looks remarkably like Antiro’s slopedA. He asks us to calculate the area between the curve and the intersecting straight line, gazing with peculiar affection at his creation. I wrinkle my nose. The man’s gone insane.
Somehow it manages to get worse. During one particular comment, where Hodgson says the answer is the number one, but that therealanswer is King James, and then laughs at his own joke as we sit in bemused silence, wondering if he’s having a breakdown, there comes a knock on the door. Baxter’s cloaked figure appears with Finlay standing moodily beside her. My heart sinks. Her hawk-like eyes scan the classroom for me, and with the crook of her finger in my direction, she calls out with distaste, my full name.
Oh, dear.
Whatever Baxter thinks of Hodgson’s bold new choice of decor, we don’t find out. It’s unremarked upon, as if the classroom weren’t currently steeped in reverence to a terrorist organization.
I pack away my books and join Finlay. Very subtly, his fingers graze mine, and I flick a soft smile in his direction. It’s amazing how, when denied words to communicate with, we’re still able to find ways to connect. But then maybe Baxter will decide to outlaw eye contact — it’s the kind of thing she’d do. We’re marched straight into her office and she slams the door behind her. It reverberates within the wooden frame. I hold back my wince.
She peers at us from across her desk, her nostrils flaring. “Where. Were. You?”
“In maths,” Finlay informs her curtly, and a muscle in Baxter’s eyelid twitches.
“Neither of you was scheduled to leave this castle over the winter break. And yet you were gone fordays. This is a breach of school safeguarding and security protoco—”
“If you wish to talk security,” I say in a voice calmer than I feel, “maybe you should take a closer look at the classroom you dragged me out of. Because if you hadn’t noticed, Hodgson appears to be using it as his political soapbox for a captured audience.”
When Finlay raises his eyebrow at me, I nod to confirm the truth of my words. “These are serious allegations indeed,” he agrees. “We have exams this month and one o’ yer staff’s wangin’ aff about politics instead?Don’tyou want us all to get straightAs and do Lochkelvin proud?”
“What goes on inProfessorHodgson’s class is his own business,” Baxter barks, which doesn’t sound like the words of someone particularly concerned with safeguarding. Indeed, the worst thing about my statement seems to be the fact I’d omitted Hodgson’s title. “I’m more concerned as to your whereabouts last week.”
“Ye know whit my maw’s like,” Finlay says easily. “Does whitever she wants.”
Baxter looks skeptical. “So if I called her, she’d confirm your whereabouts, would she?”
Finlay shrugs. “If ye can get through tae her. She’s an awfy busy woman.”
“That’s interesting, because Idid, in fact, manage to reach her office the day you disappeared, and her PA informed me there’d been no sighting of you.”
“It’s a lang journey from here tae Edinburgh,” Finlay says without missing a beat. “We might no’ have arrived yet.”
“So Miss Weir was with you, too? And you were in Edinburgh? For what purpose?”
Finlay says nothing.
“I put it to you that you were, in fact, spending the new year with Lucas Milton.” She frowns across the table, checking which of us will crack first. “Is Lucas Milton in Edinburgh?”
Neither of us answers. Instead, Finlay drawls, “If you weresoconcerned about us, why did ye no’ just call the police?”
“Because you are not children anymore,” Baxter says irritably, and there’s a dark gleam in Finlay’s green eyes at this information, as if he’s thinking of all the possibilities and freedoms that these few words entail. “From the sound of it, your mother was not overly concerned as to your location, either.” The glint in Finlay’s eyes vanishes. Baxter may as well have struck him.
“You are not subtle,” she warns Finlay, and then turns her attention to me, as if I’m someone from whom she may have better luck drawing the truth. “I know there is a high probability that you were meeting up with Lucas Milton after his sudden departure. And if he is indeed in Edinburgh, then thatisnewsworthy.”
